Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Neural Engineering and Translation Labs, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Neuroimage. 2021 May 1;231:117641. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117641. Epub 2020 Dec 15.
A fundamental set of cognitive abilities enable humans to efficiently process goal-relevant information, suppress irrelevant distractions, maintain information in working memory, and act flexibly in different behavioral contexts. Yet, studies of human cognition and their underlying neural mechanisms usually evaluate these cognitive constructs in silos, instead of comprehensively in-tandem within the same individual. Here, we developed a scalable, mobile platform, "BrainE" (short for Brain Engagement), to rapidly assay several essential aspects of cognition simultaneous with wireless electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. Using BrainE, we rapidly assessed five aspects of cognition including (1) selective attention, (2) response inhibition, (3) working memory, (4) flanker interference and (5) emotion interference processing, in 102 healthy young adults. We evaluated stimulus encoding in all tasks using the EEG neural recordings, and isolated the cortical sources of the spectrotemporal EEG dynamics. Additionally, we used BrainE in a two-visit study in 24 young adults to investigate the reliability of the neuro-cognitive data as well as its plasticity to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). We found that stimulus encoding on multiple cognitive tasks could be rapidly assessed, identifying common as well as distinct task processes in both sensory and cognitive control brain regions. Event related synchronization (ERS) in the theta (3-7 Hz) and alpha (8-12 Hz) frequencies as well as event related desynchronization (ERD) in the beta frequencies (13-30 Hz) were distinctly observed in each task. The observed ERS/ERD effects were overall anticorrelated. The two-visit study confirmed high test-retest reliability for both cognitive and neural data, and neural responses showed specific TMS protocol driven modulation. We also show that the global cognitive neural responses are sensitive to mental health symptom self-reports. This first study with the BrainE platform showcases its utility in studying neuro-cognitive dynamics in a rapid and scalable fashion.
一组基本的认知能力使人类能够有效地处理与目标相关的信息，抑制无关的干扰，在工作记忆中保持信息，并在不同的行为情境中灵活地行动。然而，人类认知及其潜在神经机制的研究通常是在孤立的情况下评估这些认知结构，而不是在同一个体中全面地综合评估。在这里，我们开发了一个可扩展的、移动的平台，即“BrainE”（大脑参与的简称），以快速评估与无线脑电图（EEG）记录同时进行的几个认知的基本方面。使用 BrainE，我们在 102 名健康的年轻成年人中快速评估了认知的五个方面，包括（1）选择性注意，（2）反应抑制，（3）工作记忆，（4）侧抑制和（5）情绪干扰处理。我们在所有任务中都使用 EEG 神经记录评估了刺激编码，并分离了 EEG 频谱和时间动态的皮质源。此外，我们在 24 名年轻成年人的两次访问研究中使用 BrainE 来研究神经认知数据的可靠性及其对经颅磁刺激（TMS）的可塑性。我们发现，多个认知任务的刺激编码可以快速评估，从而确定在感觉和认知控制大脑区域中既有共同的也有独特的任务过程。在每个任务中都可以明显观察到θ（3-7 Hz）和α（8-12 Hz）频带的事件相关同步（ERS）以及β（13-30 Hz）频带的事件相关去同步（ERD）。观察到的 ERS/ERD 效应总体上呈反相关。两次访问研究证实了认知和神经数据的高测试-重测可靠性，并且神经反应显示出特定的 TMS 协议驱动的调制。我们还表明，整体认知神经反应对心理健康症状的自我报告敏感。这项 BrainE 平台的首次研究展示了其在快速和可扩展的方式下研究神经认知动态的实用性。
